Haunted Shadows 1: Sickness Behind Young Eyes (15 page)

28

The next morning the birds sang as we
loaded up the car. Rain pattered down on the hood of my coat and ran in
dribbles down my sleeves. I shook my arm and let the drops fall to the floor.
Jeremiah opened the boot of my car and heaved both his and my travel cases into
it.

“Looks like you’ve learned some
manners,” I said. I tried to make the words light-hearted, but even the effort
of speaking was enough to drain me.

“Get in the car and buckle up.”

Jeremiah turned around. He waved a
hand in the air at Marsha, who stood pale-faced in the pub doorway.

“Thanks for the lovely stay,” he
shouted over to her. Then, in a quieter voice, he added “You crazy mare.”

Thoughts of the trip squirmed through
my mind like worms. I swiped them away and let them crawl back into the earth.
I wasn’t ready to face them yet. I knew what I had seen, and I knew what I
felt, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to think about it. It felt like there was no
need; that somehow, I had put an end to it.

I got in the car and sunk into the
seat. Jeremiah got into the driver’s side. He pulled the seatbelt across him,
eyes straining as he fumbled with the buckle.

“What the hell were you doing last
night?” he said.

“What do you mean?”

“When I barged in. You were burning
the diary.”

I wanted to tell him. I wanted him to
know that the things he searched for existed. Maybe he was fully convinced of
that already, but I wanted to tell him that I believed in them too. I knew that
I couldn’t. Some things would have to remain unspoken, because there were
things in this world that nobody should hear.

“It was just the fever,” I said.

Jeremiah huffed. He turned the
ignition, and the engine growled.

“Another damn hoax. I swear to god,
these people have too much free time on their hands. And they’re gullible. All
it takes is one daft sod telling a ghost story, and the rest of them just
swallow it up.”

I grunted. To talk more would mean to
think, and I wanted a rest from that.

“Do you want me to drop you off at
your dorms?” he said.

I thought about it. I imagined nights
in my dorm room, my lamp burning and books spread in front of me. My phone
staying silent, my notebook filling up. The coldness of the air, the bareness
of the walls. There was more to life than this.

“If I give you an address, think you
could take me there?”

The wheels of the car moved and
Jeremiah guided the car over the cobbled road and away from the pub.

“Sure, where is it?”

“I think I want to go visit some
friends,” I said. The word ‘friends’ sounded strange when I said it. It was
like a stream springing from a long-dry desert.

“Sounds like a good idea. You could
do with a break.”

As the car rolled over the country
road I got the sense the sky was opening up around us, as though the further
away we got from the village the bigger the world became. Sparrows spiralled
above us and sang. Jeremiah drove. I relaxed in the passenger seat and watched
the greens of the Scottish country side fly by. I leant forward and reached for
the radio dial, but stopped myself and sank back in my seat. The sounds of the
world drifted by, and it was time for me to listen.

Want to know when Haunted Shadows 2 is out?

Thanks for reading, and I hope you
enjoyed the book. This isn’t the end of Ella and Jeremiah’s adventures, there’s
a whole world of terror out there waiting for them and the next book is going
to be darker and scarier.

What should you do in the meantime?

You should join other horror fans on
my newsletter list.

Why?

 
So that I can tell you the minute book
2 is ready!

All you need to do is to go here with
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What
next? You should try my zombie series, Fear the Dead.

Kyle Vauss hikes the ruins of Northern England,
a broken man running from his past. He has one more journey to make through the
graveyard that was once Britain. Maybe then he can forgive himself for what
happened to his wife.
 
They said the outbreak would only last a few
days...fifteen years later the world has gone to hell. The zombie infected roam
the streets, and at night the mutated stalkers leave their nests to kill.
Nobody knows what they are, or where they're from. But anyone caught outside
after dark will find out how dangerous they can be.
 
Kyle’s got one last trip to make and a promise
to his dead wife to fulfil. When a kid called Justin tricks Kyle into taking
him along, Kyle has to learn to trust others again. He doesn't want to face his
past, but there are some things that you can't turn away from.
 
Praise for the Fear the Dead series from
other readers:
 
‘Loved this book. It had everything you want to
see in a good apocalyptic story. And it’s great to see a British author giving
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wait.’
 
‘Excellent baddies and a realistic depiction of
a post-apocalyptic future. Fear the Dead has left me wanting more and I'd love
to know what happens next. I would read a sequel in a heartbeat!’
 
‘The author Jack Lewis is the mist of writing
what could be one of the classic end of the world zombie tales in years to
come, that's if we are not wiped out be a zombie apocalypse.’

Read it here:

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2015 by Jack Lewis. All rights reserved worldwide. No part of this publication
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